I'm one of those "lots of flours" people. I like King Arthur for bread, and I seldom add gluten unless I add a lot of whole grain flour to my loaf. I never buy regular bread flour, I just use King Arthur. I do use it for other baking too, along with Pillsbury or Gold Medal or Robin Hood, whatever is on sale and the store has in stock right then, I haven't really seem a difference in any of those brands. I also keep rye and whole wheat flour in my freezer so they don't go rancid, I have cornmeal in my pantry and I like White Lily for biscuits. I also have wheat bran and ground flax seed for bread baking in the fridge. Yeah, lots of flours. I seldom buy the store brand, the one time I did I was unhappy, I opened it and it had bugs so back to the store it went. Annie

Here's how they came out - I baked them for 45 mins. in a quarter sheet pan and they were perfectly done (some reviewers said they'd cut the baking time to 25 mins.,don't know how they could have baked through..) I ended up with 12 very generously sized rolls. Recipe notes that it serves 6. I don't know how anyone could eat 2 of these in one serving, and I can't imagine making each roll twice as large as mine were and having them bake through to the center without overcooking the outside. I skipped breakfast and had one of the rolls w/ cafe au lait as my lunch and I was more than satisfied. The brioche is very rich, yet light and flaky. It was my favorite part, which surprised me, as I am a big caramel/pecan fan. The point is, the "goo" really is the icing on the cake in this recipe. Many sticky buns I've had are only good for the goo, and the bread part is just a means of transport - you would as soon toss it away once the sweet stuff is gone. This recipe was time and labor intensive. If I make it again I will probably try one reviewer's method of boiling the goo a bit before pouring it in the pan. I'd like to add a deeper caramel flavor. This was a humungous diet splurge for me. So as soon as I finished mine I packaged up all but one and brought them to my sister's for her family (w/ strapping teenage boys) to enjoy. One bonus from this baking adventure was coming back home to a house that smells like heaven!!

Ann T, I was shooting for a 100% whole wheat loaf, but I might have to cave in and add some higher protein flour to the mix. The recipe used was a recipe that was specifically designed for all whole wheat, home ground. I will try the "stretch and fold" method next time, although I've not had good luck with that technique so far. I'm not careful enough, I guess, and I'm impatient, so I've failed exactly twice, LOL, and gone back to just kneading bread. It didn't call for an overnight rise, just kneading and rising in the "regular" way, but mentioned 20 minutes of kneading, so it got kneaded well the first time around. It contains orange juice as an ingredient in the original recipe. When I mixed, kneaded and set it to rise, it just didn't rise at all. That's when I decided to let it sit overnight to see what happened. Well, what happened was exactly nothing at all, LOL, other than I got that fermented smell. As you can see from the picture, it was quite wet, but after adding the biga it was more hydrated, so that was a help, I think. I tried a "no-knead" recipe too, and used the Danish dough whisk I got from KA because it was difficult to stir and that dough was impossible, I couldn't save it. After two days of fiddling and racking my brain, it became chicken food. Grainlady, as the nice folks at Pleasant Hill Grain instructed, I ran the wheat through at about a "medium" grind first, then ground it on the finest setting for the second grind. I think I'm going to have to add an additional grinding, but some experimentation will tell me, I suppose. It has an OK texture, I was trying to keep it somewhat "grainy", but it wasn't. I also had some sites tell me that it helped to "age" the flour, and I thought "well, that's silly, the stuff is supposed to be most delicious and nutritious right out of the grinder". The final product, though, didn't taste much different to me than that made with commercially available whole wheat flour. (shrug) So, at this point I'd give the thing 3 stars, LOL. It's noisy and time consuming, the dough is difficult and the taste isn't really better than my usual whole wheat bread. It's my first try, though, maybe it'll get better. There's a whole bunch of stuff besides bread, like pancakes and waffles, hot cereal, we'll try the stuff as pizza dough. And then, it's on to corn, if I can find some that I don't have to buy 40 pounds at a time! If not, it'll have to wait until fall, when my Florian Red and Oaxacan Green dent corn is ready. Assuming it grows and the deer and raccoons don't eat it all... Annie

Lovemycorgi, those are good books. Linda is right about the instant yeast. There's one kind of yeast sold commercially (sourdough starter is a different organism). The differences are only in the handling of the product. I like ADY because it gives the baker the most control, compared to IDY or cake yeast, but it's all just yeast. :) IDY is just more likely to get played out if you want to do a longer rise, and will puff up faster than other forms of yeast. If you're following a recipe and use the recommended flour, you're unlikely to go wrong. This is where the madness starts. So long as you're happy with your bread, you have absolutely no need to go further, but King Arthur AP and Gold Medal AP will give you different results. :) Not hugely different, but different. :) Re the yeasty taste, professional bakers publish recipes that have extra yeast for the yeasty taste, especially for pizza, but also in other contexts. It may be that the extra yeast creates the equivalent of the over-proofing that Linda mentioned. I've only had over rises on bread a couple of times and it wasn't significant enough to taste yeasty, though I believe Linda that it happens.